Tungsten heavy alloys generally contain from about 88% to about 98% by weight of tungsten, balance iron and nickel. For some applications cobalt and copper have been used as alloying additions.
Tungsten and its alloys have been used for armor penetrators. Finer grain tungsten is believed to improve the performance of such penetrators. Conventional liquid phase sintered tungsten heavy alloys have a grain size of from about 25 microns to about 100 microns. Thus, the number of grains per mm.sup.2 is from about 100 to about 2000. The starting size of the tungsten powder has little effect upon the grain size of the sintered material.
It is believed, therefore, that a tungsten heavy alloy material having the beneficial properties of tungsten heavy alloy but with a smaller grain size would be an advancement in the art.